Early intravenous gamma-globulin treatment for kawasaki disease: The nationwide surveys in Japan☆
Section snippets
Methods
The Japan KD Research Committee has conducted nationwide surveys since 1970.7 The participants of these surveys are patients with KD who were diagnosed at hospitals with 100 beds or more. A questionnaire form is sent to the hospitals, with a pamphlet describing the diagnostic criteria of the disease and including color pictures of typical lesions of the skin, eyes, hands, and feet.7 We used the database of the 15th (from 1997 to 1998) and 16th (from 1999 to 2000) nationwide surveys. The total
Results
The characteristics of these groups are shown in Table I. There were no significant differences between the two groups in sex and IVGG dose per day. The early treatment group was significantly younger than the conventional treatment group (P<.001). The ratio of suspected cases in the early treatment group was significantly higher than that in the conventional group (P = .002). The total IVGG dose in initial treatment in the early treatment group was significantly higher than that of in the
Discussion
In this study, we investigated the optimal period of IVGG treatment. According to the US criteria, patients cannot be diagnosed before 5 days after onset.9 However, in the presence of classic features, the diagnosis of KD may be made by experienced observers before day 5 of fever. There were no significant differences in acute cardiac abnormalities and cardiac sequelae between the early treatment group and the conventional treatment group. According to a case-control study by Sugahara et al,3
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Cited by (0)
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Supported in part by Grants-in-Aid 14570786 and 14770379 from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology, the Japanese Kawasaki Disease Research Committee, and the Mother and Child Health Foundation of Japan.